关于英语语言中的性别歧视现象

I think Sexist in English extensively exists in society. Language, as a mirror of a society, reflects the social views and values. Sexist in society is thus inevitably reflected in the use of language. The causes of the sexist in language in this thesis are the inequalities between male and female. For a long time, people have traditionally thought that men are always superior to women in the social economy, in the politics, as well as in the culture. As a result, the idea of sexist has come into being and reflected in the language.

First, one can have a look at some examples: actor/actress, author/authoress, sculpture/sculptress, and waiter/waitress. The use is sometimes helpful in jutting out the achievements of women. However, the sex roles manifested by these words seem not as important as those of men, for instance, manager/manageress, and poet/poetess. We often talk of \"a general manager\Meanwhile, Poet Laureate --- the highest honor for poets in Britain is awarded to all the poets with outstanding contribution, including both males and females. Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to refer to the female Poet Laureate as Poetess Laureate. Take \"hostess\" as another example. It is still widely used, but its connotation has been played down on account of its appearance in such expressions like \"bar hostess\". As the supplement of the words with pejorative hints such as Jew, Negro, and Quaker, the derogatory sense of the words like Jewess, Negress, and Quakeress is evident. (Xue 12)

Second, the suffix -ette has three meanings: (A), being small in size and scale, e.g. cigarette and kitchenette; (B), artificial, unnatural, e.g. leatherette; (C), females and their supporting positions, e.g. majorette and usherette. The third meaning comes from the first two. It juts out the weakness and subordination of females, so it carries pejorative connotation. At the turn of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century, \"suffragette\" is widely used to refer to those women suffrages that fought for rights and interests for women. They called themselves \"suffragist\". However, the word's connotation also abase because of the malicious use of the public and the media. (Xue 10)

Third, the suffix -ine is rarely used in other words except heroine.

All the above mentioned suffixes are attached to the masculine words. The structure itself shows the subordinate position of females and the imbalanced relationship between males and females. Furthermore, the meanings of the suffixes carry derogatory sense to some extent. Although their uses differentiate females from males to make them as opposite groups, the female-related words are not equal to their corresponding masculine-related ones in meaning, which bates these words' meanings to a deeper degree and manifests the worse inclination of sexist.

It is inevitable to remove the sexist conceptions from people’s minds, and it is the general trend of

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current social development, the equal dialogue and culture exchange. Language is a social phenomenon, and it develops along with the advancing of the society. The sexist in English cannot disappear if sexist exists, if people only abolish the words accompanied with sexist instead of changing people’s traditional minds, and then there will be new sexist words to come one day. Only women and men own really equal status can language equality be truly achieved.

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